05-28-2021, 07:40 PM
There had been sisters in the beginning.
And then darkness.
This is what she remembers of the sisters: two identical faces that had stared back at her in abject horror as the father had separated each of them individually. (Why had he left her for last?) But Asterope had not wept as he’d led her deep into the forest, though he had not spoken and she did not dare open her mouth either. There, at the heart of all the darkness, a pond and she had turned to look up at him and it was only because she had finally opened her mouth to ask him whether he was going to leave her here that she learned she could breathe beneath the water’s murky surface. (Because the mouth was still open when he shoved her in.)
He’d retreated, the father made of shadow, and she had clambered out of the water after him. How abruptly he had turned, staring at her through the darkness. This was the only time in her life she was ever afraid, she thinks. Because he still did not speak (the father would never say a word to her), not even as the water reached for her with thick, wet hands and dragged her back in.
Now she knows better than to try to leave.
She understands that the water is her home, her father, her mother, her sisters.
She sings to the elk that venture to the pond’s edge to drink, pretending that they are family. The wolves and cougars, too. She swims and lazes in the small shafts of light that break through the thick canopy overhead. She suffers in such terrible isolation.
And today, when she hears a distant branch crack, she thinks it must be another elk come to drink. But when she turns her head she finds that it is not an elk at all but a horse! How her heart leaps with delight as she swims fast to the water’s edge, half-submerged, suddenly shy as she peers demurely up at them with those soft green eyes.
“Have you come to see me?” she asks, smiling sweetly.
And then darkness.
This is what she remembers of the sisters: two identical faces that had stared back at her in abject horror as the father had separated each of them individually. (Why had he left her for last?) But Asterope had not wept as he’d led her deep into the forest, though he had not spoken and she did not dare open her mouth either. There, at the heart of all the darkness, a pond and she had turned to look up at him and it was only because she had finally opened her mouth to ask him whether he was going to leave her here that she learned she could breathe beneath the water’s murky surface. (Because the mouth was still open when he shoved her in.)
He’d retreated, the father made of shadow, and she had clambered out of the water after him. How abruptly he had turned, staring at her through the darkness. This was the only time in her life she was ever afraid, she thinks. Because he still did not speak (the father would never say a word to her), not even as the water reached for her with thick, wet hands and dragged her back in.
Now she knows better than to try to leave.
She understands that the water is her home, her father, her mother, her sisters.
She sings to the elk that venture to the pond’s edge to drink, pretending that they are family. The wolves and cougars, too. She swims and lazes in the small shafts of light that break through the thick canopy overhead. She suffers in such terrible isolation.
And today, when she hears a distant branch crack, she thinks it must be another elk come to drink. But when she turns her head she finds that it is not an elk at all but a horse! How her heart leaps with delight as she swims fast to the water’s edge, half-submerged, suddenly shy as she peers demurely up at them with those soft green eyes.
“Have you come to see me?” she asks, smiling sweetly.
Drops of dew from their hair
